


Daybreak

by djinnj



Series: Moments [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-09
Updated: 2012-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 06:50:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djinnj/pseuds/djinnj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>July 1, 1997, in the Hogwarts infirmary, three perspectives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daybreak

**Author's Note:**

> This loose collection of vignettes is meant to be Fleur and Bill, but they aren't Fleur and Bill without other people sometimes. So this particular vignette is mostly about Molly.

*

Bill awoke. Somewhere something was wrong; there was a heavy smell of potions and someone was in pain. But cotton-wool packed his thoughts to near immobility and he could not puzzle out why it mattered, just that he was not where he should be and that was troublesome. That niggling wrongness was enough that he tried to reach out rather than lie there growing more disconcerted with every passing aeon, but it felt as if someone had affixed his arms to his sides with a sticking charm. The sense of wrongness increased and as he became more aware it was suddenly very important to know who it was in distress.

He wrestled open his eyes... eye; his right eyelid was unaccountably heavy and would not rise all the way. He teared up against the early morning light falling through the window to glimmer in Fleur's hair where she rested her head near his, asleep. He searched her face carefully looking for signs of pain, thankful to find her peaceful although there was an anxious crease between her brows even in sleep. Perhaps it was because she was sitting in a chair. She was leaning forward onto the bed beside him with her hand resting lightly on his chest. She looked exhausted and it could not be comfortable. He wanted to tell her that he would take the chair, that she should take the bed or at least share properly. He worked his dry mouth to say so when the sudden, fierce pain of it wrenched a whimpering gasp from his lips instead.

He saw Fleur's eyes fly open through the blurry lens of his own watering eyes. The scrape of chairs was lost to him as he panted and tried to be as still as possible, wondering why the world was suddenly on fire.

A flash of grey streaked ginger passed in view on his other side. Through the sharp, unpleasant scent of potions, _a panacea_ some part of his mind offered him, he smelled that curious combination of soap and baking bread and warmth that infallibly signified _Mum_ as she lifted him against her shoulder. Fleur pressed a cup to his lips, whispering that he should swallow, that please would he swallow for her, that it would be all right and he mustn't try to talk but he must swallow. So of course he did.

The pain was snuffed out by a smothering, cool dimness from which sleep beckoned like an old friend. His mother laid him down against the pillows and his mind turned inconsequentially to the time he had had the fwooping cough as a child. There was something very wrong with all of this but the why of it was too far away to matter and Fleur's hand was warm over his. She delicately brushed his hair off his forehead, a smile trembling on her lips as she murmured endearments and told him to rest, that they would be there when he awoke and he would feel very much better then. His limbs were leaden but he tried and tried again until he could turn his palm to hers and clumsily interlace their fingers. Feeling one kiss pressed to his hair with that familiar home scent of his mother, and another pressed to the back of his hand, he let sleep embrace him again.

*

Fleur held Bill's hand against her cheek as his breaths grew slow and steady and he sank back into that drugged slumber that shielded him from the worst of the pain. His face glistened with the sickly green potion that was healing the cursed wounds as best it could but slowly, so slowly. His flesh was still torn raw and swollen angry red beneath the sharp smelling balm. There would be no complete cure and it remained to be seen how far the panacea could take the healing process.

“He's better already,” Molly's low words were full of forced good cheer. “He knew you this time, and he took the draught for you, dear. And I do believe the swelling is down a little.”

Fleur looked at his fingers linked with hers and carefully blotted a tear drop off his wrist with the sheet. “A little, yes. He will be better when he wakes again, I know it.” She spoke softly but with fierce conviction. “And Madam Pomfrey has promised that the longer the potion is able to work the less the pain will be. So we will wait and... and hope it works for a long time. He is very strong and that helps.” And she had to blot another tear away.

She felt rather than saw Molly come to stand next to her, felt her put her arm around her shoulders with a squeeze. After all these months of maternal disapproval it was still strange to be included in that warmth, not that Molly Weasley had ever been openly hostile but Fleur had known. The jibes back and forth and all the little offences seemed so petty now. Perhaps they would chafe again later, but now there was only gratitude in her heart that Bill was so loved.

“Yes, dear, he's very strong. And you know how stubborn he is; he laughs and then does exactly whatever he wants.”

Fleur huffed a tiny laugh. “Yes, he is very stubborn and will be entirely maddening I am certain.” She wiped her eyes and sniffed and smiled at Molly, her lip trembling only a little. “But he will have to listen to me. He promised.”

She focused on Bill again and leaned forward out of Molly's arm to tenderly caress along his jaw where the skin was whole and unbroken. The prickle of his stubble against her fingertips was oddly comforting.

“Promised?”

Fleur nodded absently. “If he is allowed to take care of me and I must trust when he knows best, then I must be allowed to take care of him and he must trust me as well.”

*

Molly blinked a little and considered the girl before her, because really someone not much older than Fred and George should not properly be considered a woman yet.

“Do you mean you talked about...?”

“If something happened to one of us? It was only sensible. Your family is well known as blood traitors and that monster would call me a half-blood and I am French besides. Professor Dumbledore,” her lip trembled again and Molly had to swallow against the sudden lump in her own throat. “He was always clear how dangerous this is. We know what it is we do.”

“Oh.” Molly was not entirely sure what to think of their pragmatism. She understood they loved each other but this was something more.

“But it is not because of the war, or at least not only. He understands this.” Fleur was examining Bill's wounds again and reached her free hand to the correct bottle amongst so many others on the side table. She deftly applied some potion to a swab without once letting go of his sleeping clasp in her other hand.

“Let me help with that, dear!” Molly hurried to the side table and poured a little potion out into a clean dish and set it in a convenient spot. Fleur smiled at her again and then turned to the delicate business of applying the thick liquid with the lightest of touches. It was really quite remarkable how she could get the potion to flow into the wounds seemingly without the swab ever touching Bill's flesh.

Molly needed something to do. She very much could not do nothing even with her bones tired from sleeping in a chair through a disturbed night. “I'll see about some breakfast, why don't I?”

Fleur nodded, “I promised we would both be here when he awakes, but there are many hours yet.”

As Molly bustled away she heard Fleur very softly begin to sing a soothing melody in French and she had to glance back. It was just a quick look but her breath caught and she was startled by a sudden strong urge to cry. It made no sense for there was nothing to cry about, not at the moment. Especially not from the sight of her son being so tenderly cared for by a girl... a woman with so much love in her face that she outshone the morning sunlight. She sat on the edge of his bed holding his hand as she painstakingly coated his wounds in fresh balm, singing that song as if they were the only two people in the world. Even unconscious Bill had turned to her voice, to her presence.

Molly did not consider herself fanciful but she felt something in her break and her eyes stung. But there was something else there as well. It was light, like the brightening glow of the advancing morning or the bird song that she had only just noticed.

Madam Pomfrey was quietly measuring out potions for the other patients under her care, her eyes still red rimmed though it seemed she had rested at least a little. She nodded when Molly told her of her errand and suggested she go home for a change of clothes and something to occupy them during the long watches.

“For he'll sleep most of today if not tomorrow too, and all to the good if he does. Now don't you worry anything will go amiss while you're gone. I'm here and his young lady; we'll take good care of him.”

That was it, Molly realised as she flooed to the Burrow to pack a bag. She shook her head over her own folly but she knew it was true. Bill was Fleur's to take care of now. Even as her boys grew up and away they had always been hers to cosset and care for. Perhaps she had had more difficulty than she had thought in accepting that her role had been usurped and not just set aside until the next time Bill was home. At least she had never tried to drive him away from Fleur; she had not been as stupid as Bessie Kentmere who barely ever got to see her grandchildren. Molly had known a lost cause when she saw one. Bill was determined, and Fleur had proved her wrong after all. That at least was a pain her boy would not have to bear and they would both be there when he awoke properly. She closed her eyes for a moment never before so grateful for having been wrong.

Of course, Fleur would need someone to look after her whilst Bill was so hurt and with her parents so far away. She had barely slept a wink all night, Molly knew, and drunk only some tea and eaten very little. That could not continue or she would wear herself down to a nub. No one, not even self-sufficient French one-quarter Veelas could do everything by themselves even at the best of times. She nodded and firmed her chin. Fleur would just have to learn she was one of the family now.

It would be different but they could go on together; they were always stronger together. Despite the sorrows that pressed in so deeply, Molly's heart was lightened. She felt a glimmer of something that in another time and circumstance might be called happiness. Given everything, it was enough to call it hope for their future through the dark times she knew lay ahead.


End file.
